Marguerite Vermilye Beebe died on Thursday, April 2, 2020, at Talbot Hospice House in Easton, MD. [104][110] In January 1919 Roosevelt, who was severely ill by this point, wrote to Beebe from his hospital bed congratulating Beebe on the publication of his monograph. Following Beebe's death, Jocelyn succeeded him as the director of the Department of Tropical Research and continued to run the Simla station along with the rest of Beebe's former staff.[240]. William Beebe's passing on Wednesday, November 23, 2022 has been publicly announced by Strano and Feeley Family Funeral Home in Newark, DE. Beebe was a well-known figure in the Roaring Twenties of New York City and was friends with numerous other well-known figures of the period, including Fannie Hurst and the cartoonist Rube Goldberg. The first issue of the journal contained twenty papers, ten of which were written by Beebe, and two more of which were jointly written by him and Lee Saunders Crandall, the zoo's assistant curator of birds. With the help of a letter of recommendation from Roosevelt, he was given the duty of flying aerial photography planes over German gun emplacements. [236], William Beebe died of pneumonia at Simla on June 4, 1962. [93] The reproduction of the illustrations themselves was to be handled by several companies in Germany and Austria. As a compromise, Beebe decided to continue his marine research in Bermuda, where she and Beebe had spent their honeymoon. Elswyth, who was most content in temperate environments, began searching for a home in New England where she could continue her writing. After failing to find such evidence, Heilmann ultimately rejected Beebe's Tetrapteryx hypothesis, and this remained the consensus among ornithologists for the next several decades. [77][78], The last portion of Beebe's journey took him to China, from which they made an unplanned visit to Japan to escape a riot as well as a surge of bubonic plague. [279] By 1971, the station had fallen into disuse and was declared closed. His theory that organisms must be understood in the context of the ecosystems they inhabit was completely new for its time and has been highly influential. [246] As a result of his much-publicized divorce from Blair and his later marriage to Elswyth, he was also known for his stormy relationships with women. [234] Beebe also began to be afflicted with a throat ailment which may have been Sjgren's syndrome, although lacking a complete understanding of what caused it, Beebe and his doctors referred to it as "mango mouth". [219] In 1953, Beebe donated both properties to the New York Zoological Society for one dollar,[211] giving him the position of one of the society's "Benefactors in Perpetuity". [38] Although the purpose of the expedition was to discover, identify and collect Mexico's birds,[39] it has also been described as yet another honeymoon between him and Blair. Obituary of William C. Beebe. [143] While A Monograph of the Pheasants had been a factual account of this expedition, Pheasant Jungles was a somewhat fictionalized account, in which Beebe altered some aspects of his experience to appeal to a wider audience. Anchoring his ship the Lieutenant in the harbor of Port-au-Prince, he performed over 300 helmet dives examining the area's coral reefs and classifying the fish that inhabited them. [265] The naming of a new species ordinarily requires obtaining and analyzing a type specimen, something which was obviously impossible from inside the Bathysphere. [237] Both accounts agree that throughout his final years Beebe remained fond of playing practical jokes on his visitors at Simla,[237] and retained his sense of humor even within days of his death. Governor Bols and Prince George subsequently offered Beebe Nonsuch Island, a 25-acre (0.10km2) island off the east coast of Bermuda, for use as a research station. [71] The next ship took them to Singapore, where Beebe established a base of operations for the next stage of his expedition. [82] Beebe's observations of sexual dimorphism in pheasants during this expedition led him to become the first biologist to correctly understand the mechanism by which this aspect of sexual selection operates. Bill was born October 18, 1943 near Hennessey, OK to Othel "Oat" and Nellie McCartney Beebe and passed away on September 4, 2020 at his home. [72], The expedition's next destination was Sarawak, on the island of Borneo. "[275] This animal's discovery has had the effect of resurrecting Beebe's theory that leg feathers played an important role in the origin of bird flight. [207] During his work at Rancho Grande, Beebe broke his leg in a fall from a ladder, and the forced immobility which resulted from having his leg in a cast presented him with a new opportunity for observing the area's wildlife. [187], Beebe continued to conduct marine research after 1934, but he felt that he had seen what he wanted to see using the Bathysphere and that further drives were too expensive for whatever knowledge he gained from them to be worth the cost. Services for William "Bill" D. Beebe, age 76, of Enid, died, Sept. 4, 2020, are pending with Ladusau-Evans Funeral Home. According to the funeral home, the following services. [20] In 1899, although he had completed all of the required courses for a degree in science from Columbia except for mathematics, he decided to forgo his studies in favor of an invitation from Osborn to work at the New York Zoological Park which was about to open. Harlow "Bill" William Beebe, age 94, of Newaygo, passed away on December 6, 2020 in Grant. [223] Local children periodically brought animal specimens to Beebe at Simla and asked him to classify them. A. Milne. His observations documented several behaviors which were new to science, including the first documented example of play in birds. Letters and testimonials poured in from other scientists with whom Beebe had worked, attesting to their admiration of him and his influence on them. [242] The Archives of the Wildlife Conservation Society also holds several collections related to the Department of Tropical Research. This study yielded a collection of 3,776 fish of 136 species, many of them also new to science. [270], Along with his analysis of pheasant phylogeny and his studies of life in the Galpagos Islands, Beebe regarded one of his most important contributions to the field of evolutionary biology to be his hypothesis that the ancestors of birds passed through what he referred to as a Tetrapteryx stage, with wings on both their front and hind limbs. [51] The following year Beebe received a promotion from the Zoological Society, placing him on equal footing with the research scientists at the Museum of Natural History. A large number of military ships made docking difficult, most of the island's reefs were being destroyed to construct an airfield, and the combination of construction activity and pollution observed the sea life impossible. [259] Beebe was also a pioneer in the field of oceanography, setting a precedent with his Bathysphere dives which many other researchers would follow. [126], In 1924, Beebe went on another expedition to his Guiana research station of Kartabo, intending to continue the detailed documentation of the tropical ecosystem that he had begun at Kalacoon. Explore Life Stories, Offer Condolences & Send Flowers. [95], In 1916, Beebe traveled to Georgetown in pursuit of his earlier goal of establishing a permanent field research station in Guiana. Realizing that the area's politics might soon put an end to their research there, in spring of 1948 Jocelyn made a side trip to Trinidad and Tobago in hope of finding a site for a research station where the politics would be more secure. [179] Barton was often resentful of this, believing Beebe to be deliberately hogging the fame. [261] Carson dedicated her 1951 book The Sea Around Us to Beebe, writing "My absorption in the mystery and meaning of the sea have been stimulated and the writing of this book aided by the friendship and encouragement of William Beebe. He is also remembered for several theories he proposed about avian evolution which are now regarded as having been ahead of their time, particularly his 1915 hypothesis that the evolution of bird flight passed through a four-winged or "Tetrapteryx" stage, which has been supported by the 2003 discovery of Microraptor gui. [96] During this expedition, Beebe was also amazed to discover the number and variety of organisms living under a single tree and pioneered the method of studying a small area of wilderness for an extended amount of time. Although it was intended as an expedition for the zoo, Beebe described it as "our third honeymoon this year". [161] Beebe began planning to create an underwater exploration device, which he could use to descend into the depths and observe these environments directly. I was walking across our compound last month when a queen termite began building her miraculous city. July 6, 1958 - July 6, 2022 (64 years old) Silver Springs, Florida William W. Beebe Obituary Here is William W. Beebe's obituary. It is now once again actively involved in research and an important gathering place for scientists. In 1928 Beebe and Tee-Van published an illustrated and annotated list of 270 such species, which was expanded in 1935 bringing the total to 324. He attended and graduated from Hennessey High School. After Elswyth died in 1984, Jocelyn donated Beebe's papers to the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Princeton University's Firestone Library. On August 6, 1902, Beebe was married to Mary Blair Rice, better known by her pen name Blair Niles. [102][103] Combined with his earlier loss of Blair, the effect of losing Kalacoon plunged Beebe into depression. [262], By writing for a scientific as well as the popular audience, Beebe did much to make science accessible to the general public. [47] Regarding the killing of animals for the sole purpose of collecting, the book states: And the next time you raise your gun to needlessly take a feathered life, think of the marvelous little engine which your lead will stifle forever; lower your weapon and look into the clear bright eyes of the bird whose body equals yours in physical perfection, and whose tiny brain can generate a sympathy, a love for its mate, which is sincerity and unselfishness suffers little when compared with human affection. [256], William Beebe was a pioneer in the field now known as ecology. "William Beebe," in Tom Taylor and Michael Taylor, Hazard identification and risk assessment, This page was last edited on 16 January 2023, at 13:35. "[87] Beebe made very little effort to contest the divorce and did not appear in court to offer any testimony. He quickly distinguished himself in his work for the zoo, first with his skill in designing habitats for its bird population, and soon also with a series of research expeditions of increasing length, including an expedition around the world to document the world's pheasants. [281] In 1974, Beebe's property was donated to the newly established Asa Wright Nature Center. [226][227] Jocelyn accompanied him on this expedition for the purpose of documenting Asia's fiddler crabs. Smith Family Funeral Home obituaries and Death Notices for the Little Rock, AR area. [245] Although he was not physically handsome in the traditional sense, he tended to dominate every social and professional situation due to his enthusiasm, intelligence, and charisma. [17] Beebe never applied to receive a degree from Columbia,[18] although years later he was granted honorary doctorates from both Tufts and Colgate University. [35], By the end of 1903, at the age of 26, Beebe had published more than thirty-four articles and photographs in the past year. [50], In 1907, the journal Zoologica was founded by Osborn and Hornaday specifically as a place for Beebe to publish his research. [139], While anchored off the Galpagos, Beebe and his crew noticed volcanic activity on Albemarle Island, and set out to investigate it. "[258] Due to Beebe's renewed emphasis on field research at a time when laboratory studies were becoming the dominant trend in biology, more recent field researchers such as Jane Goodall and George Schaller are also sometimes considered his intellectual descendants. [194] Like Hollister before her, Crane would eventually become Beebe's lover during the long expeditions that Beebe made without Elswyth's companionship. Send Flowers decided to continue his marine research in Bermuda, where she could her... 227 ] Jocelyn accompanied him on this expedition for the little Rock AR. 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